The Flower We Saw That Day
by Sagashiteru
Summary: Now seventeen years old and in high school, Kousei struggles with having lost the person he loved. It's his last year of high school, but he finds himself unable to focus in class. He makes a habit out of skipping, living from performance to performance as if in a daze until one day, Kaori comes back to him three years after her death. However, only he can see her.
1. Prologue

_The Flower We Saw That Day_

 **Hi~ I'm back again. (I understand how that's probably not welcome news to anyone…) This story will draw heavy inspiration from AnoHana (duh…) and Kimi no Na wa..** ** _And_** **, it's going to have an actual plot, unlike anything I've ever written on this website before. (Don't worry, there are no spoilers for AnoHana or Kimi no Na wa..) So without further ado~**

* * *

 _Prologue_ :

桜の花びらが舞う中で

 _Among the dancing cherry blossoms_

 **[Suggested soundtrack: Jesper Kyd –** ** _Ezio's Family_** **]**

Kousei stepped down the step, the school bell chiming behind him. The noise of the students scurrying about, hurrying to get to class while also trying to tie up their every-day-the-same conversations about sports or video games or anime and getting yelled at by teachers at the end of their patience, was loud behind him, but he ignored it in a way that seemed almost pointed but really wasn't as he watched the car zoom by before he crossed the road.

Perhaps a little nervousness was warranted, since he was walking away from class through the front door of the school, and he did feel some of that when he skipped like this for the first time, but at this point he knew no one was paying attention to the door to notice anyone walking out.

It wasn't the best habit to fall into, he knew. He was a third year in high school now, seventeen years old, and could not afford to skip as frequently as he could in junior high. He understood that, and made an actual effort to keep up with his studies, even though he knew his interests did not lie in science or technology or engineering or math or anything in that ballpark, but he still had to study music if he wanted to excel. It was just…

School was no longer visible behind him. He slipped into the woods in the middle of town, and at the sight of the trees he felt his heart catch.

That. That was the reason.

The cherry blossoms flew in the wind, uncaring and unknowing and unfeeling, their dance almost an invitation, a taunt, like a tease, a flaunt, a fleeting kiss with the taste of alcohol and a smile with a farewell and a promise with no hint of a return. He took a breath. Three years. Three years and he was still the same. There was no way he could focus in class in this season, in this month.

 _April_.

He still remembered.

 _I still remember_

今でもまだ忘れていない、

 _Your lie in April._

四月は君の嘘。

He blinked, coming back to himself. With a breath that felt like he hadn't breathed in a couple seconds, he realized he was standing still among the cherry blossoms. His chest constricting, he pulled himself out of his trance and released the breath. A shiver seemed to run through him.

He looked up, and suddenly there was a gust of wind, and although his hair wasn't long, it constructed his vision for a second. His hand flew to his chest as if to steady himself and he seemed to sway, as if he were standing on the deck of a ship during a storm or standing on top of an airplane, his heart soaring, then dipping, then rising up into the air again, and he closed his eyes and took a breath, almost fooling himself into believing he was flying among the cherry blossoms for a moment. But then the wind was gone and he was standing alone in the woods with the sakura petals dancing around him, as fickle and treacherous as ever.

 _It's just the wind_.

So why his heart had suddenly begun to beat so fast? he did not know.

Closing his head and taking another breath, deeper but not held for quite so long, he began to walk forward. His heart was still beating faster than usual. He took steady breaths, equal in length, inhale and exhale, trying to calm himself. Why he needed to calm himself he did not know, and that perhaps contributed to the nagging feeling in the back of his mind that something was going on, or otherwise was going to happen.

 **[Suggested soundtrack: Jesper Kyd –** ** _Ezio's Family and Venice Rooftops_** **]**

Perhaps it was because of the upcoming recital next week. He knew all the other musicians who would be playing, and two of them, Takeshi and Emi, he was good friends with. He'd played at the venue dozens of times, and at this point he could practically recognize half the audience. Going up on stage to play had once been a frightening undertaking, but over the last three years that had slowly changed, until, almost without his realizing, he found that the stage was home and the peace losing himself in his art brought was unmatched by anything else. It felt liberating now, like he were riding the waves of the ocean to an island infinitely far away, and he could forget himself, become one with the music, lose everything except the ardor that still burned inside his heart for love lost. Very rarely did he really feel nervous about performing anymore. So perhaps it was because of the recital, but somehow in his heart he doubted it.

The sun was high in the air. He'd gone to the first few classes. It was important at this stage of his high school career to study, he knew, so he went to class after skipping yesterday. For a few hours he sat in his seat, taking notes, trying his best to listen to the teacher, but every few minutes he'd find himself staring silently at the cherry blossoms outside. He'd shake himself from his reverie and try to study again, but around noon he realized it was no use. He couldn't focus.

He wasn't really thinking about where his legs took him, but looking around he wasn't surprised to see that playground in that clearing. Even now, years after he met her among these same trees, it made his breath catch in his throat, and for a second he could almost delude himself into thinking she was standing on top of that structure, barefooted, her eyes closed, her hair in a ponytail, looking as beautiful and perfect and comfortable as if the entire world had been created as a plaything for her, and as delicate and fragile as her life turned out to be, and the urge to take that world and lay it at her feet overtook him. For a second he stared at the clearing, his vision glazing over as he remembered her gentle smile and her wild disposition, every bit as treacherous as the cherry blossoms, but then he shook his head and her afterimage was gone.

Feeling suddenly like there was a huge weight pressing down upon his shoulders, or something had otherwise drained all the energy from his body so he was exhausted, he collapsed down upon the ground, the fall knocking the wind out of him. Weary... So weary... Feeling like he'd just finished running a marathon, he pulled his knees to his chest, wrapping his arms around his legs, and, closing his eyes, rested his forehead upon his knees and took a deep breath.

...

"Yo."

A chill ran down his entire body, freezing him in place as if he'd suddenly been dipped into a lake of icy water, and suddenly he felt time stop, every leaf suspended in the air as if the entire world were holding its breath. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up, and the breath he was taking solidified until it was stuck halfway between his lungs and the outside world, because time had stopped. He couldn't be hearing her. He couldn't be. He couldn't he couldn't he _couldn't_. She was dead. Gone. Dead. Buried.

It tore at his heart.

 **[Suggested soundtrack: Galileo Galilei –** ** _Aoi Shiori_** **(TV-size version)]**

The temperature around him seemed to drop by several degrees, as if global warming had grown tired of its battle against the humans who cared about the planet and decided to give up, and instead dragged the world into another ice age. His skin tingled like there was cold water dripping down his back. He dared not look up. He dared not look up. But he had to. Moving as though time itself were staring in nervousness, aware of every beat of his heart as it thundered inside his chest like a bell in a kabuki theater, each beat sending ripples of cold and pain through his body as if each beat were a rock dropped into a pond until he was hyper aware of every single sensation in his skin – his clothes, the tree trunk against his back, the grass beneath him, the sun overhead – he raised his head.

Brilliant, _beautiful_ blonde, far outshining the sun overhead. She stood there, bent down to look into his eyes, her hands on her knees. He took a breath and it shook ragged like the edges of shattered glass, like no water had passed through his throat in years, and for a moment he saw in his mind the image of himself sitting haggard and lost at the side of the road, and he saw his world lighting up in color as the hand of a goddess stretched out to take his. He stared at the girl among the dancing cherry blossoms. She smiled.

" _Kaori_."

* * *

 **This chapter was really slow going. I just wanted to kinda set the tone for the fic, because this is going to be a massive undertaking. I'm expecting this to be long. Like, really long. Hopefully I can keep up. I don't know if I should even undertake such an endeavor right now, but whatever** **–** **it's therapeutic and I like doing it. The next chapter is an interlude and is just a monologue, but the one after that will get into the plot and characters and the prose will get clearer and less pretentious (hopefully). Give it a follow if you're interested!**

 **This is a story where I really want to stay true to the characters. It's something I've been praised for doing in the past, but I took (entirely too?) many liberties with Five Stages of Grief. I wanted to explore depression and SI, and it turned almost into literary fiction. Don't get me wrong – I LOVE Five Stages of Grief; I think it's the best fanfiction I've ever written. I really put my all into it. But this time I want to go for something different, something less dark, something that doesn't involve quite so much insanity. Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso is pretty fairytale in its portrayal of romance, and Five Stages of Grief was way too real with how I wrote depression. But depression is so much fun to write. Never really explored it before the way I did in Five Stages of Grief.**

 **AH, I'M RAMBLING. Shouldn't do that in public. Ahem. Thank you for reading.**

 **There might be typos (even though I proofread it once) since the person who generously agreed to be my beta is at school right now. (Thank you for agreeing to proofread if you get the time, by the way.)**

 **Anyway, this is kind of like Take a Step in the fact that it's multi-chaptered, except that I had that almost pretty much complete before I published the first chapter. As for this... I have two chapters outlined and a later scene I found sweet written down, so I don't think I'm even ten percent done. So let's see where this goes?**

 **よろしくね！**


	2. Prelude

_Prelude_ :

 _The Flower I Saw That Day_

僕があの日見た花

 _We often boast about how we value freedom over everything else, about how people can do what they want in the modern first world. However, there is a vein of extreme conformism that runs deep within our society, whether Western, Japanese, or otherwise. There are certain things you are expected to do, certain things society deems it absolutely necessary to tell you are good for you. They will stop at nothing to shove it down your throat that if you don't act a certain way, the way that everyone else acts, there is something wrong with you, and often they will ostracize you. It is of utmost importance – no, it is_ expected _of you – to "accept" what happens and "move on". Unfortunately, that is how the real world works. When you lose someone dear to you, society tells you, day and night, bashes you over the head with the words, "Move on." Accept what happened and move on. Graduate from it. It's a mantra they play over and over and over until it's etched into the inside of your very skull. Love only lasts until death. Faithfulness only lasts until death. While the person you love is alive, you will be – as you should and you deserve, for there is nothing worse than infidelity to the one you're supposed to love – scorned, hated, and shunned if you are unfaithful to them. After they die, however, the attitude of society completely flips, and suddenly there is something wrong with you if you do not be unfaithful to them. It's even tied into traditional wedding vows that we speak:_ Till death do us part. _This absolute lack of any sensible consistency would have me chuckle with its morbid irony – how convenient that death is such an easy and socially acceptable escape from the bonds of love – but smiles do not come so easily to me anymore. It's not worth it. Nothing is worth it. That is because sometimes, you meet someone who touches your life in such a profound way, shows up at just the right moment, when you've given up and shattered to pieces, that they leave a mark that cannot ever be removed. I was young when I met her, three years younger in age but oh so much longer ago as the passage of life flows. I was a child. "Love" wasn't something I ever thought about, beyond the lyrics of a song or perhaps a phrase from a romantic movie, neither of which I had any interest in. It was just a word to me, whose meaning I never stopped to consider. When she came along, however, something changed. When she came waltzing into my life, with that brilliant blonde hair and that beautiful smile, she gave that word meaning, and for the first time I saw. From the first time I met her I knew my life belonged to this girl until the end of time. I would go to the ends of the Earth for her, burn the world down to the ground if she but asked. But life always has cruel lessons for you… When that person shows up, who gives you that push you need, you learn a lot of things, how to cherish them, how to make them happy… And you must learn to say goodbye when the time comes. Because beautiful things don't last. Because happiness does not last. I know this all too well. They tell me I've become a shell of my former self since she died, withdrawn behind walls taller and thicker than when I lost my mother… I just nod numbly, for what can I tell them? It's true. I have no desire, no will to do anything. I play, yes, but beyond that I don't really think. Without her my life has no meaning. I knew my life would be about her from when I met her, and it has been. Not a day goes by without my heart mourning her. It doesn't hurt, no. Pain is a characteristic of the living, and I am dead, but my heart does throb with a dull ache, an ache that's there all the time. It seems that part of me did take her up on her offer of dying with her. They tell me to move on, to find new love, and I find this another thing that would have made me smile if I still could. They don't know what they're talking about. You can't move on from someone when they were what your life was all about. You can't find new love. You don't find love. Love… Home… Concepts that people do not really understand. Love. It is a person, not something to find. I have realized most people never experience this bond known as love, and yet they insist on speaking of it as if they had the faintest clue about what they were talking about. It used to make me angry, long ago. They have no idea what they're talking about, so why can't they just shut up? Maybe it makes me angry still, but I no longer feel emotion. I love her, and I will never love another. Even her parents have tried to get me to move on. I meet with them often. I'm closer with them than with my own father, but they do not understand what it's like to lose someone who was the other half of your soul. I'm one of the few people in the history of the human race to experience true love, and to experience the worst pain. To some, the fact that I still consider myself fortunate would make no sense. After all, had I never known her I would probably have lived my entire life in relative happiness. However, I would not want that, not now that I have known her. Yes, losing her has caused me the greatest pain anyone could ever feel. It's ripped my soul into pieces so much so that it hurts at night to draw breath, but I would still choose this over never having known her. That is how love is. I met the girl under the full-bloomed cherry blossoms, and my life began to change. Color filled my world, and my life became all about her. Then she was taken from me like a heart ripped out of a living body, leaving me broken, trembling, gasping, suffering, and dead. I'm so cold now, only the memory of the sun on the day I first saw her can have any shadow of warmth on me. I cannot move on from her. I still remember that day as vividly as if it were yesterday, the wind, the sun, and her beautiful face. And I still don't know the name of the flower I saw that day._

-Arima Kousei


	3. Chapter 1

_Chapter 1_ :

強がらなくていいんだね

 _I don't have to act so tough anymore, do I_?

Kousei spun the pen around his finger, letting it roll down his hand like a waterfall, before catching it and pushing it back up. The Sunday sun bathed the textbooks splayed on top of his desk in a warm light. The two unsolved math problems stared sullenly up at him from the notebook before him. He could not rid himself of the nagging feeling at the back of his mind, but he kept his eyes pointedly on the notebook.

 _Don't speak, don't speak, don't speak_ …

"Why are you ignoring me?"

He sighed, leaning back in his chair and closing his eyes.

Miyazono Kaori. The girl he fell in love with three years ago. The girl who took his heart away, who saved him from the darkness inside him. The girl who died and left him alone. And the girl who was currently standing in his room, hands on her hips, looking at him in narrow-eyed disapproval.

He looked away from her reflection in his phone, which was propped up against a textbook on his desk.

"I have to study," he said.

"Oh?"

He could not stop himself from turning to look at her. She raised an eyebrow.

"You have tests coming up?"

"I'm in my last year of high school," he said testily.

She huffed, and walked forward. He made to stop her, but she ignored him and snatched the notebook from in front of him before he could react and raised it to her eyes to read it. He looked at her in helpless indignation.

"You've been sitting here for the past half hour, and you have yet to solve a single problem." She pushed the notebook almost into his face, and he drew back, blinking to get the notebook into focus through his glasses. "And these aren't even that hard." She pulled it away before he could say anything and resumed glaring at him.

"You're ignoring me," she repeated.

He sighed again, and looked away. It wasn't like he was ignoring her. True, he didn't study so diligently very often, and true, he couldn't focus on anything with those cherry blossoms dancing around outside his window, and true, the fact that he was in his last year of high school didn't usually matter to him. But she had just walked into his life as nonchalantly as she did all those years ago like it meant nothing, after losing her shattered his entire world. He just didn't know how to feel around her.

…Okay, so maybe he was ignoring her.

He ran a hand through his hair. "You don't understand…" he muttered.

"Oh?" She walked back to his head, and he felt his heart skip a beat as she plopped down upon it and grabbed his pillow, hugging onto it. "Care to explain?"

He turned his chair around so he was facing her. He opened his mouth to speak, but closed it again almost immediately. What could he say? _Your death killed me_? _Losing you hurt so bad I'd have rather set myself on fire and watched as the skin disintegrated off of my bones had I been given the chance_? _I'm so madly in love with you I'd lose everything that's ever meant anything to me than lose you_? Or maybe, _I read your letter_?

That letter was one thing neither of them had ever mentioned. His eyes darted to the drawer in his desk where it still lay, battered from having been read countless times, some of the ink botched by his tears no matter how hard he tried to keep it pristine and perfect. She'd seemed a bit nervous following him into his room for the first time. Of course, it was nothing compared to his own panic when she declared she'd be staying with him from now on, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. _No one else can see me_ , she'd said matter-of-factly.

He took a breath. "It's… I don't know… Like, I know I've been … sad… after… Well, you know… More than once I've thought about… No, it doesn't matter… But I didn't think I'd get to the point where I'd start hallucinating… I mean, I knew you were – "

"Wait wait wait," she said.

"Huh?"

"Wait wait wait wait wait wait wait."

He looked up at her in slight surprise. "What is it?"

"You think I'm a hallucination?" she demanded, actually looking slightly affronted.

"I – I mean…"

"I'm dead?"

He flinched, a phantom ache going through his heart again.

She narrowed her eyes. Setting the pillow aside, she walked over to him and knelt before him. He swallowed in nervousness.

"Aright listen, Arima-sama."

His eyes slightly wide, he nodded.

"I might be dead, but I'm here now. I've come back somehow."

"I… But then, why am I the only person who can see you?"

She stood up. "No idea. I don't know how I came back. I just know that I died, and then some time passed – a lot of time – and I was in that playground again, and I knew somehow I had to wait for you to turn up there."

He stared at her, his fear for his own sanity mounting.

"What?" she said. "Doesn't sound like a convincing explanation?"

He looked down as if in guilt.

"Hm!" She seized the notebook from his desk. He opened his mouth to ask her what she was doing, but before he could say a word she ripped out the page he had been writing on. Setting the notebook back down, she waved the page in his face.

"Can a hallucination tear a page out of a book?" she demanded.

"Well… I – I could have accidentally torn it earlier…" He faltered under her gaze.

She pinched the bridge of her nose and walked away from him. He fidgeted in slight discomfort as the glared at him from the window. With two fingers he tugged at the collar of his shirt as if the room were too hot.

Suddenly, her eyes lit up and she looked at him, her indignation forgotten. He turned to her as she rushed forward.

"I have the best idea ever!" she said, her voice hushed.

"What is it…?" he asked warily.

"Alright, so hear me out," she said. "If I tell you something about my house or my room that you wouldn't know, and we go and check it and you see that I'm right, that should prove I'm real and not just a hallucination, right? Something trivial, like the contents of the drawers of my desk or the password to my laptop – I'm pretty confident my parents haven't moved my stuff around."

His heart rate began to pick up at her suggestion. "They haven't," he said, an eagerness rising inside him. "They told me they wouldn't."

She paused, and her face slowly lit up with joy as if she'd been afraid her parents would forget her, and seeing her happy Kousei felt a small smile creep up onto his lips.

"Oh!" she said, and Kousei started.

"W – What?" he said, tilting his head to the right.

"You smiled!"

He narrowed his eyes. "What about it?"

"You didn't smile when you first saw me. I thought you were sad to see me because you cried."

 _She looked different, slightly. It was clearly her, but she did not look exactly like she had three years ago. She was taller than before, but not as tall as Kousei. It seemed to him that if they both were to stand straight, she'd be slightly shorter than him. Her body was more slender, not skin-and-bones like she used to be. Her face was more angular. The slight childlike-ness of a fourteen year old was gone from her. She looked older, as if she'd aged the same as him. She actually kind of looked like a woman instead of a girl, and it stunned him because she was perfect before but now she was even more beautiful than that._

 _He took a breath, and found it shook. With a jolt he realized he was crying, and he raised a hand to his face. His cheeks were wet. He inhaled again, trying to compose himself, and it felt like there was a hole in his chest. He didn't feel grief. Not even shock, but he found there was a slight tremor in his limbs. It wasn't noticeable, he thought, but he could feel it. His chest felt weird, but what took his breath away he could not say._

 _She only smiled, and offered him her hand._

He felt his face heat up faster than the rays of the young sun streak across the sky in the morning, and he looked away, his cheeks burning. "I – No, I didn't, I – "

She giggled. "I'm just teasing you."

He glared at her. She waved him off and stood up, stretching.

"We need to figure our plan of action out."

"Do I just go up to your parents and ask to see your room?"

"No, you idiot. That wouldn't work."

"I don't think they'd refuse…" he mumbled.

"Even if they don't, it would be weird. They'd definitely be suspicious. Why would you want to see my room all of a sudden?"

His gaze fell, too much truth in what she said.

"We also can't let them see you."

He looked up at her. "What? Why?"

"How will you go to my room if they know you're in the house? They'd probably make you tea. Will you bolt out of the living room the second they look away? Yeah, that won't be suspicious at all. No, we'll have to sneak in."

He stared at her in exasperation, almost regretting his decision to go along with her brilliant idea already. She carried on, not noticing his distress.

"We could sneak in through the side door," she continued, "the one we used to take out the trash. It opens up into a cupboard, but it's close to the stairs, and my room is at the end of the hall upstairs."

Kousei bit his lip. He knew the place she was talking about. The cupboard was just wide enough for the two of them to walk abreast, but the door from the cupboard to the rest of the house was what worried him. There was no flap or window in that door, so it would be impossible for them to know if someone was in front of the door before they opened it. He looked to his phone on the desk. Well, he had an idea…

"We're going to need a way to figure out where they are while we're at your house."

She stopped in her explanation and looked at him, finally looking puzzled. "Oh, right, because the door…"

He took a breath, and, knowing it was a bad idea, took his phone from the desk. "I have an idea."

"Oh?"

"Watari told me about this app…" he said, unlocking his phone and going to the app store,"…that lets you track all the devices connected to the access point you're connected to, but I don't think… Yep, it's not on the app store."

"Any other way to obtain a setup file?"

"I…" He paused. "Yes!" he said, looking up suddenly. "Watari sent it to me but I had no use for it at the time so I ignored it. If I can only find it on LINE. Hmm…" He scrolled past hundreds of messages, most insubstantial, Watari talking about school or sports or something with Kousei sending half-hearted replies. "I think it was like two weeks ago, and we've exchanged quite a few messages since then, so it might take a while to – Found it!"

She almost jumped at the sudden excitement in his tone, and rushed over to look at his screen. Inexplicably, he felt his heart rate quicken and his skin grow suddenly more sensitive to the air around him. She bowed down beside him to look, her hair falling beside her face. Raising a slender white finger, she tucked a lock behind her ear to see properly, and Kousei forced himself to look back at the screen.

"Right," he said, his voice almost sounding alien to him for the slightest second, before it was back to normal like nothing happened. "We can track where your parents' phones are with this, as long as I'm on the same network. I mean, it's not a perfect solution, since they don't necessarily have to have their phones with them while walking around the house, but it's a safe bet to assume they probably would. That, and the fact that we have no other choice."

"Oooh." She turned to him, and he found himself looking at her. Her eyes were wide when they met his, and he felt his heart beat faster again. She was close enough for him to feel her breath on his lips. Swallowing, he inched away on his chair, praying she didn't notice.

She didn't seem to, and he breathed a sigh of relief. "You don't know the WiFi password though."

He shook his head. "I'm already connected. I told you, I've been spending more time with your parents than I have at home lately. They like never let me eat alone. I have to eat with them like every day and then take food back home with me."

"Ooh, that's why the refrigerator is full with our stuff?"

He nodded. "I think there's more of your products at my house than at your bakery at this point."

She grinned, and stood up. "Yoshi! So we have our plan!" Her grin widened, a wicked gleam in her eyes. "Now let's go carry it out."

Heart quivering in nervousness, he sighed. "Yes, my Lady."

xXx

The day was bright. There were few clouds in the sky at this time, and those that survived the sun's gaze were more akin to wisps, drifting by as if lounging on a lazy Sunday. The cherry blossoms of April were in full-bloom, dancing in the air like pink snowflakes.

It seemed like no one was at home today. As soon as they left the residential district his house was in, they were swallowed by a sea of people going in all directions like a storm on an extraterrestrial planet that would constitute an astrophysicist's wet dream. Kousei kept close to Kaori, shooting looks around to make sure they didn't bump into anyone.

"This is kinda exciting," said Kaori.

"Speak for yourself…"

He would have imagined people would stay home on Sunday, but it seemed otherwise. There was a slight breeze in the air, and the spring weather was pleasant, with the soft scent of fleshly-bloomed flowers around them.

He could scarcely bring himself to enjoy it, however. Perhaps it was because he'd gotten so used to feeling his heart ache all April that he couldn't think differently even though she was here now.

She thought he was ignoring her, and he supposed he was, but it was inadvertent. He didn't set out _to_ ignore her. It was purely a reaction to his own thoughts. His heart had never been more confused in his life. He spent three years retreating into himself after he lost her. It hurt. It hurt so bad. The pain of losing his mother couldn't even compare. If the pain of losing his mother was like ripples upon a pond, the pain of losing Kaori had been like the quantum fields than run through the universe – less visible, and perhaps counterintuitive as a notion, but oh so fundamental and permanent and powerful.

But she was back, and he had no idea how to feel. It was like his entire world had been thrown into disarray. And he was not unhappy about the fact that she was back – far from it, but… He just had no idea how to wrap his head around everything. Somewhere in his heart he'd maintained, perhaps to hold onto whatever bit of sanity he could, that he was hallucinating, and some part of him was okay with living in that uncertainty – at least it brought some comfort. But today it would be laid to rest one way or the other, and he wasn't sure if he wanted to find out.

But… Perhaps that wasn't entirely accurate, he thought as they rounded a street corner. There was a part of him, a silent but surprisingly determined, surprisingly _alive_ part of him, that wanted to lay the issue to rest, and it frightened the rest of him, but he felt that part of him already knew the answer and wanted to confirm it for sake of propriety.

The crowd began to thin as they moved away from the center of town. The spring leaves swayed gently, as if to some music only they could hear. Kousei looked behind them. No one seemed to have noticed her, and he found himself breathing a sigh of relief.

But he shook his head. That made no sense. They didn't know who she was. They didn't know she was supposed to be dead. Just because they didn't react to the presence of a random girl among dozens of others didn't mean they couldn't see her.

But no, he suspected the reason he couldn't enjoy the weather too much was just because of how nervous he was at the absurdity of their hasty plan. A thin film of cold sweat covered his skin, freezing in the April wind.

A gasp from Kaori shook him from his thoughts. He looked to her, but she looked past him, staring forward with her eyes wide, a mixture of delight and nostalgia upon her face. He followed her gaze, and felt his chest constrict.

Suddenly, as if involuntarily or at least absently, she grabbed his hand. He felt his heart leap, but he didn't pull away.

 **[Suggested soundtrack: Asian Kung-Fu Generation –** ** _Re:Re_** **(TV-size version)]**

She opened her mouth to speak, and he looked intently at her. What did he think she was going to say? _Remember that road_? _Remember riding your bike down it until the night grew old_? _Remember bickering endlessly_? _Remember spending entirely too much time traveling down that road when there was no one but the two of us_? _Remember how that road became our kingdom where no one else existed_?

No, there was hardly any need for words to be spoken between them. So instead she just squeezed his hand and said, "The stars were beautiful."

He squeezed her hand back.

"Yeah, they were."

xXx

It was perhaps the most stressful endeavor he'd ever undertaken. The street her house was on was pretty much completely silent, the life from town too far to hear. The spring sun shining down upon them should have felt pleasant, but all he could focus on was the task before him, and his crippling nervousness.

They stood before the side door. Kousei looked to Kaori. Usually the epitome of confidence manifest, she seemed almost unsure of herself. He tried to give her a reassuring smile, but he expected it came out as more of a grimace. She broke into a grin, looking amused. Perhaps not the effect he was going for, but it worked. He felt the knot in his chest loosen a little.

"So…" he said.

She looked thoughtful for a moment. "The right door to my closet," she said. "It creaks. That's a fair test, I think. You wouldn't know that because I'm pretty sure you've never been inside my closet." She glared at him pointedly. "Have you?"

"N – No, of course not," he said hastily.

"Good." She closed her eyes and took a breath. Kousei found himself sucking in a breath as well as he studied her. Perhaps it would be unnoticeable to anyone else, but he could see the slight squaring of her shoulders, the slight – anticipation? in her eyes. She caught him studying her, and turned to give him the reassuring smile he'd tried to give her, and he felt his heart beat with slightly more confidence. She stepped past him and up to the door, and only then did he realize, with a frown, how effectively she'd taken his attention off of her state of uncertainly with the slightest smile.

"Ready with your phone?" she said, pulling him back from his thoughts.

 _Right_. He fumbled with his pockets for a second, before pulling his phone out and unlocking it. The app was already running and his phone was connected to their internet. Perhaps, if… He hesitated. Would they know he was here? They certainly would, if they looked at how many devices were connected to their – No, he doubted her parents were so technologically adept.

He looked up to see her eyes on him. Determined, he nodded at her once, and she nodded her understanding back. Opening the door, she stepped inside.

He stared after her for a second, his heart pounding in his chest. Then he shook his head, and, ignoring the feeling in his heart he was only eloquent enough to describe as a mixture of suspense and dread, he followed her inside.

The first thing he saw when he stepped inside was not her parents, so he allowed himself a sigh of relief. She looked at him with half a smile, as if the admittedly ridiculous extent of his nervousness amused her, and shook her head. He rubbed the back of his head sheepishly.

She rolled her eyes. " _It's fine, stop worrying_ ," she whispered. Why she needed to whisper he didn't know, since only he could see or hear her.

He glanced at his phone, and her gaze followed his. The green radar pulse showed three devices currently on the network – one to their right, which he assumed was their desktop PC upstairs, and two a ways left of them where their living room was. Her parents' phones, probably. He turned his head to her and a look passed between them. They could only hope they had their phones on them.

"Well…" Kaori said softly so only he could hear, her voice betraying the hint of nervousness he had caught earlier. "The coast looks clear."

He nodded, not trusting himself to speak. She looked to the door to the main part of the house. Her eyes clouded, acquiring an almost wistful look, and he found himself staring in silence, unsure if he should speak. But she looked to him and smiled reassuringly, but he thought the smile this time was different than before. Nevertheless he said nothing, and she took the lead, opening the door and stepping inside.

Kousei took a breath, and, feeling as he were stepped between the maws of a dragon without a rope to climb back out, followed her. He walked on his toes, bending his knees and waist to the point where he was almost crouching.

As soon as he stepped into the house, the air seemed to change, growing cooler and gentler compared to the outside. Kaori watched him in silence, similarly crouched, her brow slightly furrowed as if in anxiousness as he pushed the door closed behind them. He looked at her, and she banished the frown from her face as soon as she realized he was looking.

The door shut with a gentle click, and Kousei exhaled. Kaori turned her attention forward, and for a while they paused to listen to any sounds they could. For a moment it seemed like there was silence, but the a cloud of soft conversation rose from the living room as their ears adjusted.

He sucked in an involuntary breath, and his gaze snapped to hers. The conversation was too far and too soft for them to really make anything out, even with the paper-thin Japanese walls, but it was clear it was her parents who were talking.

Kousei looked to his left, trying to see if he could make anything out through the door, but he couldn't. He looked back to Kaori, almost opening his mouth to speak, but stopped at her expression.

She stared toward the living room with an expression of such longing he found himself frozen as though the air around them had suddenly solidified. If her eyes were clouded before, the pensive sadness in her expression now was opaque and deep as the ocean, and for a moment he felt as if he was falling through the air because he had never seen something so perfect and tragic, so beautiful and sad.

Then the spell broke, and she was looking at him, her eyes shining with her usual determination.

" _Let's go_ ," she mouthed, pointing behind her to the other side of the narrow hallway where the stairs were. He nodded, and quietly they made their way up the stairs. He kept his eyes glued to the screen of his phone. Her parents didn't seem to be moving, both from the app and the soft buzz of their conversation.

Once upstairs, they allowed themselves to relax a little, and stood up straighter. Kousei resisted the urge to roll his shoulders. Kaori looked to him.

"I assume you know which one's my room?" she asked, her voice soft but not quite whispering now that they were further away from her parents.

He nodded, looking to the last door at the end of the hallway.

"You ever been inside?"

"Once…" he said. "I was helping your parents clean the house. Although I didn't really go inside as much as just look at it."

She looked at him with that signature grin that tried to look carefree but struck a chord inside him so deep it shook his entire being like a hammer against a bell. "I guess this will be your first time inside then."

"I suppose…"

"Well, let's go."

He nodded, and followed her to her door. They could barely hear her parents here. It was fortunate that it was spring, he thought. If there'd been fans or air conditioners running somewhere in the house, he was sure they wouldn't her parents walk up the stairs, let alone talk downstairs. Still, he glanced nervously at his phone, but there was no evidence of them having moved so far.

He looked to Kaori. The violinist reached a hand out to grasp the door handle and looked at him. He nodded at her, and it seemed his desire to encourage her worked this time, as she wasted no time turning the handle, opening the door, and stepping inside in one fluid motion, turning the lights on. Taking a breath, he followed her inside.

Although it hadn't been lived in for three years, her room was spotless. Her bed was made perfectly, the dresser on their left adjacent to the door without a particle of dust, the items on the desk neat, the curtains clean and washed. It seemed perfect. Perfect. Perhaps at first glance you wouldn't see anything wrong with it, but it was… too perfect. Like if the surface of the ocean were to be completely still like a lake on a windless day. The longer you looked at it, the more it became evident there was something off.

The bed was _too_ well-made – it was clear no one had slept in it for a long, long time. The dresser was too spotless, the desk too neat. This room felt cold, deprived – frighteningly so, like a corpse in a royal dress and heavy makeup. It was a ghost, and despite how aesthetically pleasing it looked, it reeked of death.

Kousei set his phone on the dresser beside him, and stepped forward. "Let's be quick," he said nervously. "This… Kaori?" He tilted his head, looking at her in confusion.

She did not seem to have heard him. Instead, she walked slowly forward. He looked to where she was going.

 _Ahh_ … Her violin, in its case. She knelt before him like a sinner seeking repentance before an altar, and reached a hand out toward it. Unlike before, when she'd grasped the door handle in one swift move, now her hand hesitated, pausing an inch away from the case. For a moment she stayed in that position, a shiver seeming to run through her. Then, slowly, her hand shaking slightly, her fingertips met the case.

She opened the case, and gasped as the sunlight swallowed her violin. With reverent, worshipful hands she lifted it out of its case and made to stand up.

"Kaori…" said Kousei said softly.

She seemed to have forgotten his presence, for she turned back to him with a start, cradling the violin close to her chest. Her knee hit the case, however, and it crashed to the floor.

Immediately, the sound of the conversation downstairs ceased.

Kaori blanched, and Kousei felt himself go cold.

" _Go hide in the closet_ ," she whispered.

His limbs feeling numb, he hastened to obey. The door creaked as he opened it and stepped inside, closing it after him. The hangers poked painfully into the back of his head. The closet was adjacent to the dresser, so he couldn't see the door to the room too well through the crack, but he could see Kaori as she returned the violin inside its case and set it down exactly as it had been before. She turned the lights off and stepped back just as footsteps approached them.

His heart thundering against his ribs, he adjusted his position until he could see the door, albeit unclearly, if he squinted. He bit his lip, holding his breath. The footsteps grew louder, and Kousei clenched his fists, forcing himself not to panic. His heart pounded so hard he was afraid whoever was coming to check would be able to hear it. The sweat ran down his face, and the distance between each footstep felt like it spanned from the east end of an Earth torn open and spread flat upon the fabric of space and time to its west end.

The sound of the door handle turning broke through the silence, and he released the breath he'd been holding in panic. Immediately, he inhaled again, holding the breath in as the door opened. Kaori seemed to freeze, standing still with her gaze fixed upon the doorway as her mother turned the lights on and stepped inside.

Kousei's heart leapt in his throat as her mother looked forward, straight at her daughter. Kaori said nothing, standing stiller than Kousei was, and for a moment he almost imagined her mother was going to acknowledge her. Then she looked past her as if there were no one standing there and swept her gaze carefully over every inch of the room.

It was clear she couldn't see Kaori.

She studied the room for any signs of an intruder, but Kousei was confident Kaori's violin was exactly where it had been before they came. As long as she didn't open the closet door, they should be safe. Kaori's mother looked to the left and her eyes narrowed, and Kousei felt his heart skip a beat, almost entertaining the notion that she could see him through the closet doors – but a second later he shook his head at the absurdity. Sure enough, it seemed like she hadn't found anything out of the ordinary, so she turned the lights off and left the room, closing the door behind her.

Kousei waited for her footsteps to fade down the stairs, before opening the closet door and stepping out. He walked over to where Kaori stood still, staring at the spot her mother had just vacated.

All he could do was say her name. "Kaori…" She didn't reply, so he laid a gentle hand on her shoulder.

She blinked, as if coming out of a trance. "Kaori," he said again, and she turned to look at him with a smile.

A knife of ice cut him open from his throat to his heart, and he felt a weight heavier than the burden of Atlas fall upon his shoulders as he stood there looking at her. That smile was the most broken thing he'd ever seen, as if all the glass in a cathedral were shattered and scattered upon the floor. It formed a mosaic so sharp it would cut your hands if you touched it and your eyes if you beheld it. It was beautiful. Oh, it was beautiful, so beautiful the stars could never hope to compare. But in that moment, he knew that if someone told him that if he peeled the skin off of his bones with a serrated razor, he would never have to see that smile again, he would do it without a second thought.

"Let's go home," she said, and the façade of _I'm okay_ in her voice was so fake he felt like he would be able to grasp it in his fingers if he reached out.

There was so much he wanted to say, so much emotion inside him he wanted to get across to the girl who, even in death, was the reason for he lived, so much he wanted to express but couldn't in words so his heart ached for him to grab her in his arms and hold her against him and never let go. But instead he just nodded and said, "Yes. Let's go home."

* * *

 **Sorry for taking so long. Life happened. As much as I wish I could flee into a forest and never see another living soul for the rest of my life, that would also disconnect me from the Internet, so it's not a viable option.**

 **For those of you who found it odd that their door should be unlocked, and are wondering why it did not strike the characters as unusual – it's not because I'm a careless writer. Although I might very well be, it's actually not that uncommon in many places in Japan to not lock your doors during the day.**

 **Some of you might feel this isn't as well-written as, for example, Symphony, and I agree. I expect the prose will get better as I grow more accustomed to this story. One-shots are easy to perfect in one try since you usually don't really have a dramatic structure to worry about. Something like Symphony or Itsudatte is pure beauty of prose with little to no story. But I haven't written something with an actual plot in over a month, so I have to kinda ease back into it. This story is going to have a good plot if I ever get around to finishing it, so look forward to it.**

 **Hopefully, I can be quicker with the next update. Meanwhile, those of you who haven't read my YliA fic, Five Stages of Grief, should definitely do so (#subtlehint). That story is almost purely an exploration of mental illness using my fucked up headcanons. It's quite good, if I do say so myself.**

 **Okay, enough wanking myself. Good day to you bastards~**


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